South Korea, US to hold summit in October

Seoul, Aug 13 (IANS) South Korean President Park Geun-hye and US President Barack Obama will hold a summit in Washington on October 16 after delaying the meeting in June amid the rapid spread of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in South Korea.

The South Korean presidential office on Thursday said that Park and Obama would hold their fourth summit at the invitation of the latter, Xinhua reported.

During the summit, the two leaders would exchange opinions about various issues of mutual interest, such as the development of US-South Korea alliance, cooperation in issues about North Korea and North-East Asia’s peace, stability and prosperity.

President Park was originally set to make a five-day trip to the US from June 14, but it was postponed as the country’s MERS spread peaked during the time, with the contagion cases topping 100.

The deadly viral disease, the first case of which was found on May 20, has infected 186 people, killing 36 among them. The toll and the contagion number have been unchanged for more than a month.

The government declared the de-facto end of the MERS spread in July. South Korea became the most MERS-contagious country outside of Saudi Arabia, where the viral disease first emerged in the world in 2012 and more than a 1,000 cases have been reported since.